How to learn French quickly?

There are lots of ways to learn French quickly and maximise the speed with which you learn any language.

The quickest way to learn French is to immerse yourself completely in the language as much as possible. Obviously the best way of doing this is to go to France for a period of time. This isn't possible for many people so the next best thing to learn French fast is to surround yourself with as much as the language as possible.

Read on to discover my top tips on how to learn French quickly from the comfort of your own home.

The language on young kids TV is very simple and repetitive. This is to help children learn language and understand it while they are watching TV. Therefore watching TV in another language is slow enough and simple enough to follow so that you can begin to learn French quickly. The Internet means there's lots of opportunities to watch kids TV from the comfort of your own home. Check out online kids programs at http://www.tf1.fr/programmes-tv-jeunesse/. There are some programs it won't let you watch unless you're in France but there are also quite a few it will give you access to.

A really good way to learn French quickly is to speak to native French speakers. There are lots of ways you can do this.

• Find a private French tutor. If you don't have much money many French students studying in your country may be willing to tutor you at a reduced costs
• Join a French conversational group. There are groups where people come together to talk and practice in French. Look in your local area to see if there's one near you.
• Take French lessons. Join a college group in your area. Many of these will have native speaking or fluent speaking French tutors who will be able to correct your written and spoken French and help you progress very quickly.

 A really good way to remember and reinforce your French language and vocabulary is to talk to yourself in French. Walk around and describe what you see. Think how to tell yourself what to do and where to go. This help you remember all the words, phrases and grammar you are learning. It helps you to think more quickly in French too.

There are lots of very good home study programs which offer lots of ways to learn and immerse yourself in the French language without leaving your home. A highly recommended study program that I like is Rocket French. The Rocket French programme:

• offers a 6 day free course to test out first
• has interactive audio programmes to help you practice your French verbally and through listening
• has a megaverb software game to help reinforce your verbs
• has a megaword software game to help you learn vocab
• has a mega audio software game to help your listening skills
• has French teachers on call 24 hours a day for support and questions.

Go to the Rocket French website for more information and a 6 day free course

A lot of people say watch French TV or listen to French radio to learn French. The problem with this is that the people speak too quickly and you don't really pick it up or learn to understand phrases because it's not very repetitive.

To learn a language you need to hear, copy and repeat phrases over and over again. This is how children learn to speak. Therefore find some videos on YouTube in French, watch French programs online but watch them over and over again until you can pick out and understand the phrases. Buy DVDs of French of films that you love and know and watch them again and again. This is how to learn French quickly, rather that just watching random programs a lot.